


Work Through It

by khooliha



Category: Re-Animator (1985)
Genre: Gen, Grief, Invented Backstories, mourning in many forms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 00:14:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7991524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khooliha/pseuds/khooliha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some of the ways of dealing with death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Work Through It

Herbert West was an orphan, which wasn’t surprising. One day his parents had been alive and well and the next they were gone – smashed to pieces on the road by someone who walked away from the scene. Misfortune isn’t genetic, but when you looked at the West family tree you might be tempted to think it was. He was alone in the world. 

He stayed that way until he was deemed old enough to take care of himself, kept isolated by a mixture of his naturally charming personality and the scalpel-sharp obsession he had cultivated since that night. He didn’t need anyone else and he made sure they all knew it. Societal connection was reserved for the day he could protect it properly. The world was too random otherwise. 

He was smart enough that some people let him get away with it. Enough people. The world’s reward for how it had treated him? The end of sudden, unexpected death, of course. Other death too, but was almost a side effect. In fact, if you hadn’t seen him linger a moment by bodies that he couldn’t help, you’d think he didn’t care at all. This, like so much else, was by design. 

***

Meg Halsey was only four years old when her father had to tell her that he mother wasn’t coming home. She had fought, he said, fought so hard and so long, but she was at peace now and they wouldn’t have to go to the hospital so much anymore. Something about it was beyond her grasp, but she knew that her father was upset and that was all she really needed to understand. Grief filled the home for years, long after she came to understand death. It never left, not really, but they carried on as best they could. When her father was promoted to Dean of the Miskatonic Medical school her first thought was of how proud her mother would be, and how sincerely happy her father looked after so long. 

She visited the grave every year, on the anniversary, sometimes with her father and sometimes without. She said goodbye all over again every time. She felt guilty about not understanding from the beginning, for not comprehending from the start. It wasn’t kind to her child self, but these things happen. 

She could have gone to another school for her degree, but she stuck with Miskatonic because she didn’t want to leave her father, even though he could handle it. They had moved on, together, as much as they could. She couldn’t see going somewhere else. 

***

Alan Halsey lost a wife to cancer and the home they had lived in for years was suddenly too large, an emptiness that couldn’t be filled. His daughter kept him going, he wouldn’t dream of denying that. Taking care of her was the one thing he gave his life meaning in the beginning. That pulled him through the years and the emptiness, provided the grounding that let him move on with his life. 

He wasn’t some brilliant doctor, he couldn’t help people the way his wife had needed help, but there was something he could do – he could help other people get there. Administration wasn’t glamourous, but he was good at it. He could run the best damn medical school in the state, just so that someday some other man wouldn’t have to tell his child that they would never see their mother again. 

***

Carl Hill didn’t talk about his life. Not with his colleagues, certainly not with his students, not even with Alan Halsey who, by process of elimination, was the closest friend he had. This didn’t stop rumors though. The most common one, somehow, was that he had been married once, and that his wife was no longer around because she had been killed. Not by Hill, that wasn’t the thing people whispered to one another. Killed by a stranger, to be sure, with stabbing seemed to be the agreed upon method. Most of the debate hinged on whether she had died in his arms or if he had merely found her. Was it robbery? Random violence? Did it even really happen? It was an evergreen discussion topic, assuming Hill wasn’t in the same building or, if possible, the same city. 

***

And Dan? Dan’s parents were alive, his grandparents were alive, he had never even been to a funeral. He had seen his share of death of course – he was a medical student. Patients had died on him and that tore him up, but that was something to be worked through, part of the job. Death had been painful, not personal. 

Except now Meg was dead, they were telling him to stop manually pumping her heart because they were done, _she_ was done. Dean Halsey was in pieces a few floors down, he’d seen it happen. Doctor Hill had been crushed and exploded and even if he had no fondness for the man he was still rocked by the violent end. And his roommate? Herbert West, strange and too intense, had been choked to death by the guts of the man he had twice killed, or by some noxious gas, or both maybe, Dan didn’t know. He hadn’t known Herbert long but he, like everyone else, had plenty of opinions about the man and his ambitions. It was all too much, everyone agreed. An admirable goal, if you were feeling generous, but somewhat abominable, and his personality didn’t help smooth the rough edges. 

But was this how he felt? This burn at the back of his throat like he might throw up at any moment? Or maybe it was more of the hopelessness that Dan felt ooze up through him when he looked at Meg and knew that she would never rise again. It had only been a few moments since everyone had left, had given up, but he already knew that he would do anything, anything at all to undo her death. _This is it_ he thought distantly as his hands worked on their own, drawing reagent into a needle. This wasn’t his – not just the bag and the chemical, but this idea. This drive. 

_It doesn’t matter if it’s mine or not. It is all there is._

He drew Meg close, told her he loved her, depressed the plunger, and hoped beyond hope that he would never feel this way again. 


End file.
